I was about to embark on this when Covid intervened and for the moment it just didn’t feel like the right time. However, on reflection I don’t suppose these episodes do much more than shift the scenery. Despite such interventions and for all our apparent progress, it’s clear fundamental behaviours remain stubbornly unreconstituted. How else would so many quoted truths maintain their relevance for over two and a half millennia? This being the case it would seem unrealistic to expect any imminent change and more sensible to acknowledge and guard against the less desirable but inevitable consequences of some of those characteristics. So I shall proceed. . .
There’s a need for effective checks and balances; robust institutions informed by an awareness of human limitation; and above all for vigilance; to have the courage to see things as they are and defeat the normalising effects of acquiescence. To call out transgressions and departures from rationality before we’re overwhelmed.
It was the painful and impotent witness of a close friend’s suffering as the target of narcissistic bullying that brought me here initially. In seeking some remedy I’ve exhausted every “proper” channel and it’s a sad reflection that the greatest trauma is inflicted by those who compound the abuse through complacent indifference. Not just those with the authority to help who contribute by evading their responsibilities in favour of a more advantageous expediency but all those who do nothing simply in their reluctance to acknowledge an awkward or distasteful reality.
The tendency to jettison objectivity in favour of convenient and beguiling conceit; to confront any new situation through a normalising prism and to maintain an identity born of the need to ‘fit in’, to belong within the fold for fear of an unpalatable reality without; to find comfort in reassuring prejudice. These are traits that colour perception and dispel reason. A denial of factual veracity that enables and welcomes duplicity.
There is amongst the population – allegedly a relatively small proportion but often prominent and influential – a well documented behavioural type. Theirs is a pathology that maintains traction because so few seem willing to challenge the familiar hegemony.
Call it what you will: psychopathy, narcissism, sociopathy, megalomania; it’s contagious and seems to be becoming endemic. The exponents bully, distort and abuse to massage their fragile egos and feed their vacuous vanities. Truth becomes transactional in their pursuit of self interest; they’re harmful, they can change the world.
It’s not enough to look the other way; tacit consent simply enables and that’s how the infection spreads; rationality increasingly displaced by self-serving fictions that obscure clarity of vision and spread delusion. It makes of us a foolish and pointless people informed by petty partisanship, ambitious for transient gain and devoid of enduring purpose.
When life offers so much; such shades, flavours and opportunities, it feels desperate to waste time and energy grappling with those that would make a contest out of every detail. Their determination to reduce all to a fight for competitive advantage is an exercise in futility which serves only to diminish. It’s a destructive element that seems to found a growing cultural paucity – all too evident when education is more often promoted essentially as a “life chances” utility. The pursuit of knowledge is subjugated to the competitive imperative for material and social gain. . . . .Essays for sale – why not? What’s with plagiarism – looks like a sound investment?
So this is my subject born of an utter dismay at a growing flight from cogent reason. To throw some light on all that is symptomatic of our failure to confront an abandoned authenticity.
The examples are legion and my first post, written before lock-down, outlines an issue with an energy supply company. Although this resulted in a substantial credit award the outcome is hardly satisfactory in that it suggests a clear policy to deceive. Perhaps in itself an insignificant matter but indicative of a spreading malady. The post will follow soon.
To end this introduction, though, I will touch upon an aspect of the previously mentioned bullying that seems central to and so representative of our prevailing culture.
In this country we submit to the rather oxymoronic notion of adversarial justice and so commodify a fundamental human need. Adam Sampson the Legal Ombudsman writing in 2012 noted that “lawyers intimidate”, speaks of having the “scarier weapon” and acknowledges that the power to intimidate was a “key part of a lawyer’s armoury”. It’s a vocabulary that speaks for itself; the language of those who would dominate and impose. Theirs is a business model that courts success with little regard to equity. One that frequently gives rise to NDAs with the sole intention of concealing an inconvenient truth; one that appears to regard the “balance of duties” (client/justice) as a hurdle to be sidestepped.
Despite my friend’s entirely and demonstrably honourable behaviour, her antagonist, in pressing his demands eventually employed a lawyer from a major Scottish firm, sometimes characterised as “hard hitting”, with the inevitable result. In some ways my greatest difficulty lies in confronting the fact that the practitioner’s purpose was achieved with such an apparent ease that nevertheless displayed all the finesse of a third rate thug. Pity he didn’t stick to the traditional tools of his trade – thumb screws and baseball bats leave bruises for all to see.
. . . . . Never mind the misrepresentations, the incoherence, the logical absurdities; feel the intimidation, feel the humiliation, feel the fear. They’ve thrown everything but the kitchen sink at you; it could run to over a hundred thousand to defend; it’ll probably be dragged out for months, even years; is it worth the emotional damage? Best just reach an agreement; give them what they want; still cost you, but rather less and don’t forget – the clock is ticking. . . . .
No amount of arcane jargon and pedantry can disguise the intellectual paucity and essential dishonesty of the onslaught but it prevailed. To those unacquainted, being caught in the mechanisms of civil litigation is a terrifying and alien experience. This is a machine which has little to do with reason, truth or justice and everything to do with winning and losing. It furnishes a natural vehicle for the bully.
In case anyone thinks I’m unduly partisan I’ll conclude with an illustration. Of course I’m not untouched by the sight of a close friend, a quiet and decent woman, driven to a point of trauma requiring medical intervention and counselling, but trust I always remain objective and impartial in my perception.
I will reproduce in full (names removed) one paragraph (Article) of a writ served on this woman. The document extended to thirty seven such items, much characterised by incoherence, misrepresentation and a general intention to deceive, of which this is just one example.
Underlying the entire matter was a question of boundaries and my friend had sought the guidance of Registers of Scotland in the hope of finding a definitive, equitable and legitimate solution. The neighbour, finding this advice unappealing, set his lawyer to work. Ironically a few feet of boggy grassland was of little significance to the woman but it offered an ideal ground on which the neighbour could air his apparent insecurities.
The paragraph speaks for itself – the only knowledge required is that in Scotland there is a statutory requirement that every registered title define the boundaries to the plot. These are identified on the title plan by a red tint applied generally within the plot and adjacent to the actual boundary. Hence two adjoining plots will each exhibit a “red edge” with the separating boundary the black line lying between them.
It seems unlikely that a partner in a prominent legal firm, whose stated practice includes the resolution of property disputes, is unaware of the fact – the simple expedient of placing two title plans side by side makes it abundantly clear that to regard the red edge as a “red boundary line” would result in a strip of no-man’s land between all adjoining titles. A gap in excess of a metre and a half at 1:2500 – clearly ridiculous! A Scottish registered title simply does not display a “red boundary line”; this is not a title “properly construed”. Perhaps the lawyer felt his diversionary pedantry served to safely distance him from the ineptitude. The quoted measurements are not disputed but the conclusions, drawn on a false premise so inane as to be farcical, are completely invalid. The Article is deliberately misleading, dishonest and a deceit.
The sad fact is that this nonsense as with so many other instances is immaterial; it won’t be put to the test. This is no careful or nuanced consideration of the facts, it’s a far more blunt instrument. Privileged access to the arcane practices and procedures of the law is wielded to traumatic effect in service of the client. Pressure is applied to inflict maximum pain and extract submission regardless of reason or reality.
This woman’s life, and that of her young son, have been changed for ever. She feels bullied, abused and traumatised; any right to a peaceful existence sacrificed to the unreasonable demands of her neighbour and to sustain the professional pretensions of his brief. It is beyond belief that we tolerate this masquerade as a justice system.
The text follows. I’ll be returning to the issue but that’s it for now.
32. Following the general survey of the boundaries, (X) was able to prepare various plans of the area which show the boundaries of the Pursuers’ Property and the Defender’s Property. In relation to the 3 Metre Strip, the findings from the survey revealed that the distance from the centre of the red boundary line of title XXX to the centre line of the old stone Dyke scales to a distance of 3.4 metres at the southern end of the 3 Metre Strip; and 3.6 metres at the northern end. If the distance was measured from outside edge to outside edge, the distances would be greater still. Even on a “worst case” scenario for the Pursuers, if measuring from the inside edge of the red boundary line of XXX to the centre of the dyke, the distances would reduce to 2.8 and 3 metres respectively. However, in practice, the measurements which would be applied would be from the centre of one line to the centre of another line. Accordingly, the Pursuers believe and aver that they own a strip of between 3.4 and 3.6m in width; but the declarator they seek in terms of Crave 1(a) is restricted to a finding that the extent of the 3m Strip is at least 3m in a westerly direction from the centre line of the old stone dyke throughout its length, pursuant to the de-crofting direction. They seek this declarator in restricted terms in order to provide certainty and to enable them to erect a fence at a distance of precisely 3m from the centre line of the stone dyke without interference. They seek this limited declarator notwithstanding any greater entitlement that they may have in accordance with the titles, properly construed.
Outing The Pathology 